With more than 19 months until the 2012 presidential election, preparations for the election are already underway.
By Andrew Faust
April 29, 2011
HIGH POINT, N.C. - It’s official: the U.S. is now accepting applications for the 2012 presidential candidacy.
OK... it’s not quite that simple.
As public interest grows in next year’s presidential election, candidates are beginning to confirm their interest in running for presidency, and recent polls indicate the public’s split approval of President Barack Obama’s job.
Following President Obama’s April 4 announcement confirming that he is seeking nomination for the 2012 election, five other candidates have also confirmed their bid.
The other confirmed candidates include Randall Terry (D), Gary Johnson (R), Fred Karger (R), Andy Martin (R) and Jimmy McMillan (R). As with elections in the past, many other candidates are expected to confirm there bid for the presidency in the upcoming months leading up to primary elections.
Incumbency Advantage
Based on past trends, the election will be significantly more difficult for candidates running against the current president, who is the incumbent candidate in the election.
In past presidential elections, incumbent candidates have typically won.
However, ten presidents have “unseated,” or won in elections against, incumbent candidates in the past, including:
- 1800: Thomas Jefferson unseated John Adams
- 1828: Andrew Jackson unseated John Quincy Adams
- 1840: William Henry Harrison unseated Martin Van Buren
- 1888: Benjamin Harrison unseated Grover Cleveland
- 1892: Grover Cleveland unseated Benjamin Harrison
- 1912: Woodrow Wilson unseated William Howard Taft
- 1932: Franklin D. Roosevelt unseated Herbert Hoover
- 1976: Jimmy Carter unseated Gerald Ford
- 1980: Ronald Reagan unseated Jimmy Carter
- 1992: Bill Clinton unseated George H.W. Bush
Photos: Click here to view photos of this story.
How Obama’s current approval rating may effect the 2012 election
With recent Gallup Poll findings indicating a 46.7 percent approval by Americans of President Obama’s job, it is difficult to make predictions about the potential effect of his approval in the 2012 election.
The poll’s results for President’s Obama’s ninth quarter, are higher than the previous two quarters, but are the third lowest in his presidency.
Dr. Martin Kifer, associate professor of political science and director of the Survey Research Center at High Point University, said that there are two ways in which the rating may affect the 2012 election.
“First of all, President Obama is looking closely at his approval rating in some of the states where he’s trying to think about how he’s going to win the reelection,” said Kifer.
Kifer said that President Obama will need to focus on ways to utilize his resources most effectively in the months leading up to the election.
“The second thing is that you’ll have people on the other side, in the republican party, who are looking at his approval rating in particular states looking at where he’ll be effected,” said Kifer.
Additionally, Kifer said that more politicians will most likely choose to run against President Obama as a result of his current approval ratings.
Recently, polls of North Carolinians’ approval of President Obama’s job (in March and April) conducted at the SRC at High Point University found similar results to those of the Gallup Polls.
“If the president had a 60% approval rating, the republicans might find it harder to find someone to run against him,” said Kifer. “But now, depending on what poll you look at, the president has between high 40s and low 40s in terms of his approval, so that means you have a significant amount of candidates who are coming out against him because, they think that he is reasonably likely to be challenged in 2012.”

Click here to visit Gallup’s Interactive Presidential Approval Center.
Voters’ opinion
With more than a year until the election, voters have time to make a decision for their vote.
When asked about her view on the 2012 election, registered independent voter Melissa Osborne of Fairfax, Va., said that although president Obama will most likely serve as the democratic party nominee, she does not want to make any decisions without considering all candidates.
“It's too early to tell, and the Republican landscape will change over the next few months," said Osborn.
Similarly, Steve Sherman, a registered democrat in Fairfax, Va., and Mary Helen Waltjen , a junior at High Point University both said that they aren’t impressed by the current candidates, and hope to see others soon.
However, Kifer said that some candidates may wait for the 2016 election, in order to avoid running against an opponent with an incumbency advantage.
“For individual candidates for 2012, they’ll be looking at support for the president to see if its the right time to run.”
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